D.O.G.S.

History

2003-2005
Koji first met Katsumi sometime in 2003, at a night-shift job they both were doing.
Few months later, they met up again to jam in the studio, just for fun. Turned out they felt the "bond" and decided to form a band together.
Though it took full two years until they found a bassist and a drummer and really became a band, they kept jamming and wrote a lot of songs together and also played small bars and clubs, and out in the parks.

2005
After becoming a full band in April 2005 with drummer Ryuhei Katayama and bassist Nao Takahashi, they started playing bigger venues and clubs in and around Tokyo. Though it wasn't long before Ryuhei departed, due to his health condition. (Since then, the band had been through total 16 drummers until finally settling with Daiki Hirasawa in 2012.)
After several drummers, drummer Atsunori Ito joined the band at the end of 2005.

2006
Though it seemed like the band was in full force with joining of drummer Atsunori, bassist Nao suddenly left the band citing the difference. 
Band continued without a bassist for few months and in March 2006 they recruited a support bassist Tetsuya Kayanuma.
In late July the band enters the studio with engineer Leon McCormick to record what will become the first album, "Out Of The Prison".

2007

the band self-released the album "Out Of The Prison" in January 2007 on CDbaby, iTunes and other digital retail stores as well as at their own shows and it gained some fanbase around the glove, much owe to MySpace. 
Despite the completion of an album, while discussing the possible nation-wide tour as well as overseas tour, drummer Atsunori decided to exit the band to pursue other things. the band then decided to take some time off and went hiatus after playing a handful of album release shows in Tokyo.

2008-2010
the band re-emarged in 2008 with several different new bassists and drummers, most notably bassist Hirohide Takanohashi and drummer Yuichi Sato, who stayed with the band for about 6 months together and recorded the first two new songs for the upcoming second album, "Over The Walls".
The recording of the long-been-planned second album started in late 2008, but due to the repeated lineup changes it took over 4 years to record enough materials for a full album.

2010
the band was still struggling to find the permanet drummer & bassist, though in the beginning of 2010, the band was asked to tour Malaysia with the band Green Love, who had been the supporter of the band for few years.  The band then asked the original drummer Ryuhei to come back to join this tour, but he suggested to recruit his long time band mate and a drummer Mure to fill in the drums, and himself on bass instead. (He actually was a bassist) 
With this lineup the band went to Malaysia and did a couple of shows in March 2010.  The band was interviewd and also featured on Malaysia's biggest rock magazine ROTTW.
After the Malaysia tour, the band asked Ryuhei and Mure to go on board for another overseas tour, this time in USA. but it was declined by both due to their commitments for their main bands.
The band kept searching for the new members and in June 2010, drummer Takeshi Nagahama and bassist Yosuke Yamamoto joined the band.
The band convinced them to go on their first-ever US tour, and in September 2010 they went to Seattle, WA and played 5 shows.

2011
After returning to Japan, though, bassist Yosuke decided to leave the band and, months after Takeshi also left the band.  Another lineup change occured, and luckily the old friend of the band, bassist Shin Tanaka offered to join the band.  After Takeshi left, (due to his busy work schedule and such) Shin brought in his long time band mate and drummer Yuji Kondo.
With this lineup, the band took another tour in the US, again in WA., in October/November of 2011. This time the band did a total of 11 shows in 2 weeks, and the shows were well-received by local fans and the bands. 
500 copies of newly recorded single "Bend" was all sold out.

2012
Despite the success of the tour, Shin and Yuji prefered to focus on their main band after returning to Japan. 
The band, essencially and basically it had always been just Koji and Katsumi, have finally decided to find "the right" members who will stick with the band permanently.
And with the suggestion of another old friend, the band welcomed the bassist Shimpei Nagashima in the beginning of 2012.
Much of the 2012 was spent on rehearsing, writing songs and working on demos with just Koji, Katsumi and Shimpei. 
They have recorded about a dozen of demo songs together.
By the end of the year, they have played some shows with several drummers.


2013
In March 2013, the band had an opportunity to open for the band Machina from US, featured ex-members of Evanescence & Future Leaders Of The World. The band called and asked Mure to take on this tour, and they played first-ever shows in Osaka and Nagoya, as well as two shows in Tokyo with Machina.  All shows were sold out. 
The band met a drummer Daiki on one of these shows, and in August he joined the band.

2014

The band recorded some new songs in late 2013 with a friend engineer Yusuke Obata (also the drummer of the band Oh My God, you've gone) and released 5-songs "Dark Tunnel EP" in April 2014 on iTunes, CDbaby, Spotify and other digital retail stores as well as on their own BandCamp & ReverbNation page. 
Title track "Dark Tunnel" was almost featured on a soundtrack for a movie (which title can't be revealed for legal reasons) which was supposed to be released world-wide, but the deal was dropped at the last minute for reasons it can't be addressed here for legal reasons.

The band spent much of the rest of 2014 writing, working on new materials together for the new album and began working on pre-production demo in October.  

In December 2014, the band was named one of the "HOT 100 Unsigned Artists & Bands of the year" in Los Angeles-based Music magazine called Music Connection Magazine.

   
2015
In January the band have made a contact with Jack Endino, who is well known for producing Nirvana's first album "Bleach"in 1989, as well as working with Soundgarden, Mudhoney, Therapy?, Kerbdog, etc.  And was agreed to do recording with him.

The band kept rehearsing and kept working on some new songs for the recording, but during that process, Daiki have decided to step out from the band. 

The rest of the band, however, decided to keep the band and have decided to do this recording with a help of a drummer who lives in Tacoma, WA named Michael Barksdale, whom the band have met on 2011 US Tour and have kept in touch with. 

The band will go to Seattle in November 2015 to start recording with Jack Endino.



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